Going Home
by LadyAsfaloth
Summary: Of all the things Clint had imagined for their future, this...hadn't been one of them.


It was sunny.

Funerals weren't supposed to be sunny. They were supposed to be dark, drab, dreary, a light drizzle to accompany everyone's spirits. And if he were the clichéd, sentimental sort, he would say this is how she'd want it to be.

But Clint Barton isn't sentimental – or so he tries to tell himself. And Natasha – _His _Natasha, never liked the clear skies and hot days. No, she preferred the rain, the stormier the better, watching it from inside with a cup of tea and a blanket, dancing in the downpour when she thought no one was watching. But his Natasha is gone now.

The mission had been easy, straightforward, neither of them could've expected the explosion until it was too late. He'd woken in the infirmary, with nothing but a concussion and a fractured hand to remind him. Until Coulson had broken the news. Natasha was dead.

As he'd explained it, they hadn't known what killed her – the shock of the explosion, the shrapnel piercing her flesh, or the building that crashed down on her as a result of the blast. All that mattered to Clint was that she wasn't alive, and he was.

They wouldn't let him see the body. For his own good, Coulson insisted. It was better if he remembered her as she had been, alive, healthy, beautiful, not the bloodied and torn mess they'd pulled out of the debris. It wasn't fair. None of this was.

So there Clint stood, at the edge of the crowd, circling a plain, black coffin, in a grassy knoll in the middle of the cemetery, his plain jeans and leather jacket in sharp contrast to the suits and sundresses of the surrounding gathering.

Denial, as Coulson had hushedly explained to everyone else. Clint wasn't denying anything. He'd had a suit laid out on his bed that morning, pulling it tenderly off the hanger, when a strand of red hair on the shoulder caught his attention. Then it all came rushing back, the last time he wore it. One of Stark's extravagant fundraising events, Natasha in an elegant red dress, attaching herself to his arm as they danced the night away, completely oblivious to anyone watching. She'd ended up falling asleep against his shoulder, and he'd had to carry her back to their shared bedroom in the tower, where he helped her out of her gown and she returned the favour. 'Save the suit for another occasion', she'd insisted, carefully hanging it on the rack before turning her attention to the man she loved.

The starting of the ceremony pulled Clint back to the painful present. The four remaining Avengers stood side by side behind the coffin, strangers gathering close, TV cameras beginning to roll and photographers snapping away.

He hated all of it. None of these people knew Natasha, to them she was just another name, a faceless hero in the eyes of the public, one of the famed Iron Man's coworkers. They didn't see her as a human, a woman, a lover, a friend. Not in the way he did.

Tony began his speech, his voice betraying the pain clearly evident on his face, hidden behind an oversized pair of unnecessary sunglasses. Pepper clung to his arm, tears still streaming down her face, not even attempting to mask her emotions as Tony rattled on about the amazing, brave woman who'd given her life to protect the world.

"Is that what they're calling it now?"

The humorous scoff of one of the bystanders set Clint off, belonging to the guy standing beside him, donned in a tan trench coat and black beret. He was short, small, if Clint wagered a guess, somewhere around 16, or puberty had been a bitch to him. Slamming a firm hand on the bastard's shoulder, Clint whirled him around, the other hand fisted and raised for a punch when their eyes met. Grey meeting warm, lively, beautiful green.

"Nat-" Her hand was over his mouth in an instant, wrapping him in a headlock as she pulled him towards a nearby corpse of trees. If anyone noticed the commotion, no one took a second glance.

Safely behind the shelter of pines, Clint pulled the woman he thought he'd never see again into his arms, holding her as though she might slip away at any given point. She, in turn, wound her arms around his neck, backing him up against a tree and pulling his mouth down to passionately meet hers.

This was real. This was right. This was insane.

Coming up for air a moment later, he knocked the beret off her head, telltale red curls cascading down to her shoulders. "Natasha?" he breathed, voice rusty, broken from weeks of silence. "It's really you, isn't it?"

"Tupoy," was her response, her voice bringing to life parts of him he'd thought dead, as she lightly knocked him upside the head before pinning her lips to his once more.

"What…how?" he muttered against her lips, pulling her back to get a good look at her. She looked roughly the same as she had the last time he'd seen her, minus a few new, healing scrapes, probably from the explosion. Just as beautiful as he'd remembered, and now, he didn't have to anymore.

"I needed a break," she grasped his hand, fingers slipping between his, tugging him along away from the funeral. "Except I forgot something of mine, and now I'm back to pick it up." At his evidently confused expression, she added, "You."

"But Fury, SHIELD-"

Fishing out a car key as they neared the parking lot, she remotely unlocked an average looking sedan. "We'll deal with them when we need to. Right now, it's just you and me. And _nothing's_ going to change that."


End file.
